PUB00068

• Year: 1952
• Title: A Hundred Years of Irrigatioin in Colorado, 100 Years of Organized and Continuous Irrigation
• Author: CWCB
• Description: Irrigation history of Colorado
• Publications - Doc Type: Historical

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lI~f -::- Of Such contract or contracts with irrigation
districts hereinbefore referred to shall flU'ther provide
that all j.rrigFeble land held in private ownership by Feny
one owner in excess of one hundred sixty irrigable acres
shall be appraised in Fe menner to be prescribed by the
Secretary of the Interior and the sale prices thereof
fixed ,y the Secretary on the basis of its actual bona fide
value at the date of the appraisal without reference to
the prop0sed construction of the irrigation works; and that
no such excess lands so held shall receive water from any
projoct or division if the owners thereof shall refuse to
exeuute valid recordable contracts for the sale of such lands
under t8rms and conditions satisfactory to the 3euretary of
the Interior and at prices not to exceed those fixed by the
Secrotary of the Interior;?r -11- ?1-. II

As presently construed by the legal advisors of the Interior
Department, this means that a farmer who OVf!lS more than 160 acres of
irrigable land under a reclamn:tion project cnnnot receive project water
for 10l0re th!1l1 160 acres unless he signs a recordi1ble contract to sell
the excess over 160 acres at a price determined by the Secretar~ of
the Interior. For example, if an OvVDer has 480 acres, he can receive
project water for the entire acreage only if. he agrees to sell 320
acres at a price fixed by the Secretary.

~

Various reasons have been assigned for this limitation. One
factor was probably the desire to prevent speculation and to assure
that the incremental land value, resulting from organization of land,
water, and labor into a farm unit will inure to the benefit of the
water user whose skill and energy make possible such development.
Another was the intent to protect the investment of the United States
against the hazards which result from sherp rises in land costs and
the Rttendant increases in the landoyftler1s overhead expenses. In recent
years the land limitation provisions have been advanced as an essential
part of a social program designed to assure family-unit farms and to
prevent corporate farming.

The l60-acre law is of universal application in all of the states
wherein the ~'ederal reclamD.tion program operates. It applies equally
to the fruit end vegetable raisers of Arizona and California and to the
livestock raiser of Colorado. This element of universality is the
basic CB.use of trouble over the 160-acre law.

So far as the family-size farm principle is concerned, it seems
self-evident that the desirable acreage must necessarily vary with the
different conditions which prevail in the various sections of the
United States. Is it fair or logical to apply the same yardstick to
the San Luis Valley of Colorado, with its mile and a half altitude and
lOa-day frost-free season, as is applied to the low-altitude areas of
Illinois and Missouri where there is a lBO-day frost-free season or to
the fertile valleys of the southwestern and Pacific coast stQtes
where crops may be grown the year round? In a desert oasis watered

.